Exercise 1
Identify instances of a semantically contentless ‘there’ and ‘it’ in the sentences below.
| (1) | a | There was a man at the door. |
| b | He put the book there. | |
| c | The apples are there. | |
| d | There is no reason to fight. | |
| e | It took them two hours to get there. | |
| f | It appears to be out of order. | |
| g | It appears that he got lost. | |
| h | I take it that the answer is ‘no’. | |
| i | There are no policemen there. | |
| j | He had a hard time of it in the army. |